A Practical Guide to Safer Relief
Dear Fellow Practitioners,
I've dedicated 45 years of my life to the practice and exploration of trauma and addiction therapy. My journey has been deeply influenced by the incredible individuals I've had the privilege to work with, especially the women in my early groups who taught me the profound importance of listening beyond words.
What I learned from those women is the basis of everything I am sharing with you in this course.
On this 5-module journey, we'll delve into the somatic experiences that shape our understanding of trauma and addiction, exploring how these experiences are not maladaptive behaviors but rather adaptive responses rooted in our autonomic nervous system.
Then, through a blend of theory, experiential practices, and live demonstrations, I'll offer you a model and methodology to foster deep, healing connections with your clients. As you deepen your connection with yourself, you deepen your capacity to be with another person in a shared, felt-sense experience.
I invite you to join me on this journey of learning and discovery. We'll explore the intersections of polyvagal theory, the felt sense, and the profound wisdom of the body. Together, we will move beyond traditional paradigms and embrace a holistic approach that honors the complexity of human experience, while learning a very useful framework for helping clients move inevitably toward healing.
With warmth and appreciation,
Jan Winhall
"…I searched for a way of understanding addiction that is compatible with the non-pathologizing embodied approach reflected in the polyvagal theory and focusing oriented psychotherapy. I looked for a way of understanding the complexity of addiction from the body up, viewing the body as a living organism that is imbued with a knowing of the right next steps for survival and thriving."
Jan Winhall
Jan Winhall's Impactful Course Unlocks the Transformative Power of the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model...
This course is designed for therapists and practitioners seeking to deepen their ability to treat any kind of trauma and addiction through a somatic lens. You'll learn how to integrate polyvagal theory, focusing on techniques and interpersonal neurobiology into your practice, helping clients navigate their inner experiences and achieve lasting healing.
With a blend of theory, experiential exercises, and practical applications, this course offers a comprehensive guide to embodied therapy. You'll get access to 5 professionally filmed on-demand modules, and 5 live calls with Jan.
Each week Jan will review the concepts from the modules, and then lead you through the embodied practices presented in her new book 20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction. Together, you'll create a safe, enriching space for sharing, exploring the edges of polyvagal theory and felt sensing.
Over the 5 Modules You Will Learn:
- The foundational theories behind the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model and how to apply them in practice.
- Gendlin's 6 Steps of Focusing for connecting clients with their inner wisdom and somatic experiences.
- How to shift from a pathological lens to a polyvagal-informed understanding of trauma and addiction.
- The 7 Fs model which illustrates how the autonomic nervous system governs responses to trauma.
- Techniques for enhancing client safety and connection through neuroception and interoception.
- The role of interpersonal neurobiology in fostering integration and healing.
- Four Circle Harm Reduction Practice-a tool for clients to use to navigate their addictive and dissociative behaviors by addressing triggers and developing healthy behaviors and social connection.
- Practical strategies for addressing addiction as an adaptive response within the autonomic nervous system.
Here's what you can expect from each module of this course:
Module 1
Live call: Fri. Oct. 10th, 2025 | 12:00-1:30pm EDT
Foundations of the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model
In this module, Jan gives a brief history of her work with trauma and addiction clients and how she learned and developed the model she's teaching in the course. Some of the key things you'll take away from the module are:
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- A paradigm shift from seeing trauma-related behaviors as maladaptive to understanding them as adaptive survival strategies. Jan emphasizes the importance of presence and how it fosters a more profound understanding and connection with clients.
- The five key theories that underpin the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, including Feminist Theory, Focusing, Interpersonal Neurobiology, the Learning Model of Addiction, and Polyvagal Theory. Jan explains how these theories inform her approach to trauma and addiction.
- The critical relationship between trauma, triggers, and addiction. Jan challenges the notion that trauma therapy can be separated from addiction therapy and provides insights on how to address these interconnected issues in clinical practice.
Module 2
Live call: Fri. Oct. 17th, 2025 | 12:00-1:30pm EDT
Experiential Psychotherapy: Finding the Felt Sense
In this module, Jan introduces her mentor Eugene Gendlin's research-based somatic process, which focuses on the importance of the felt sense in fostering connection with embodied wisdom. Focusing helps clients to begin the journey of coming into connection with their body. She guides attendees through the six steps of Focusing, emphasizing the need for safety in this practice.
Key takeaways include:
- The six steps of focusing and the importance of a relaxed approach, emphasizing exploration without performance anxiety.
- Jan introduces Gendlin's Experiencing Scale, a tool that helps therapists assess a client's level of embodied integration. She provides examples of how to encourage clients to deepen their experience and move toward greater self-understanding.
- The concepts of the Felt Shift and Focusing in Partnerships - Jan explains how felt Shifts, 'Aha" moments, are indications of deep somatic healing. She also delves into the dynamics of focusing partnerships in dyads or triads, highlighting the importance of deep, embodied listening and co-regulation. She emphasizes how these practices facilitate therapeutic outcomes.
Module 3
Live call: Fri. Oct. 24th, 2025 | 12:00-1:30pm EDT
Bringing the Body to Mind - Interpersonal Neurobiology
In this module, Jan discusses Dan Siegel's nine domains of integration within interpersonal neurobiology, exploring how each domain contributes to a comprehensive understanding of mental and emotional health.
Other key takeaways include:
- The intersection of attachment theory and neurobiology, with special attention to the role of the prefrontal cortex in regulating emotions and fostering secure attachments.
- Window of Tolerance: explaining how therapists can help clients move from states of chaos or rigidity to a place of integration and calm.
- Jan wraps up the modules by guiding participants through a tender practice of revisiting early memories of being soothed, helping them connect these experiences to their current self-soothing techniques.
Module 4
Live call: Fri. Nov. 7th, 2025 | 12:00-1:30pm EST
Trauma and Addiction - A Polyvagal Lens
In this module, Jan explores the adaptive nature of trauma-related behaviors through the lens of polyvagal theory. She explains how creating a sense of safety is vital to helping clients shift out of these behaviors.
Some other key takeaways include:
- The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: Jan introduces the 7 Fs model, which illustrates how the autonomic nervous system governs responses to trauma. She emphasizes the importance of understanding addiction as an adaptive behavior within this framework.
- Polyvagal-Informed Focusing: This covers the role of the autonomic nervous system in shaping our responses and judgments. Jan teaches how to use focusing and polyvagal theory to retune these responses.
- Neuroception and Interoception: Jan explains these concepts and their significance in therapeutic practice. She provides exercises to help participants tune into their bodies and regulate their autonomic states.
Module 5
Live call: Fri. Nov. 14th, 2025 | 12:00-1:30pm EST
Using the Learning Model of Addiction to Teach Your Clients How to Change
In this module, Jan challenges the traditional view of addiction as a brain disease, presenting a neuroplasticity-informed perspective by Marc Lewis, that emphasizes the brain's capacity to heal and adapt.
Other key takeaways include:
- Develop an understanding of the brain's structures involved in addiction, explaining how disconnects in these areas contribute to addictive behaviors.
- Jan introduces the Four Circle Harm Reduction Practice, a tool for helping clients navigate their addictive and dissociative behaviors by addressing triggers and developing healthy behaviors and social connection. This tool provides therapists and clients with a practical roadmap for healing trauma and addictive behaviors.
- Jan concludes the module by summarizing the core concepts of the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, emphasizing the centrality of the autonomic nervous system in healing trauma and addiction.
PLUS, You’ll Get All Of These Incredible Bonuses
A preview from Jan’s book:
“Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: A Bottom-Up Approach”
A preview from Jan’s newest book:
“20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction: Using the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model”
An On-Demand Demo
Aevar demo about the felt sense of parenting - Jan will demonstrate a Focusing session that dips into the felt sense of surrounding parenting fears and responsibilities.
An On-Demand Demo
on how to use the Four Circle Harm Reduction Practice as a roadmap to guide the process of healing from trauma and addiction.
An interview between Jan and Dr. Andrew Tatarsky
about his Harm Reduction approach to treating clients with addiction, and how his work and Jan’s are similar in many ways…
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Meet our Presenter
Jan Winhall, M.S.W., P.I.F.O.T.
is an author, teacher, and seasoned trauma and addiction psychotherapist. She is an Educational Partner and Course Developer with the Polyvagal Institute where she offers a training program based on her book Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, Routledge 2021. Completion of four levels leads students to become Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Facilitators. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto and a Certifying Co-Ordinator with the International Focusing Institute. Jan is Co-Director of the Borden Street Clinic where she supervises graduate students, and is the founder of Felt Sense Polyvagel Institute. She enjoys teaching all over the world. Jan's new book Twenty Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction: Using a Felt Sense Polyvagal Model was released in March 2025 with Norton. It is a manual for her first book, designed for the general public.
Testimonials
"In Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Jan Winhall introduces a new strategy to treat addiction that brilliantly integrates Gendlin's classic concept of a felt sense with Polyvagal Theory.
The author shares her intellectual journey in which unique insights transform two disparate perspectives into obvious complements leading to a powerful treatment model. As Polyvagal Theory gives the language of neuroscience to Gendlin's felt sense, the phenomenological world of Gendlin becomes transformed by Polyvagal Theory into observable shifts in autonomic state. The product of this creative journey is an integrated therapeutic strategy with the potential to decode the wisdom of the body with its full repertoire of survival reactions into positive outcomes that promote optimal mental and physical health. These successes are highlighted by new abilities to co-regulate with others that lead to successful trusting relationships."
―Stephen W. Porges, PhD, scientist, author, creator of Polyvagal Theory
"Reframing addiction and its treatment through the lens of Experiential Psychotherapy, Polyvagal Theory, Interpersonal Neurobiology and Imago Relationship Therapy,
Jan Winhall has produced a brilliant synthesis and expansion of addiction theory and treatment that should be read by all therapists, not just addiction specialists."
-Harville Hendrix, PhD, and Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD Authors of Doing Imago Relationship Therapy in the Space Between
"Jan Winhall brings together the essence of groundbreaking modern therapeutic practices with her own decades of hard-won clinical experience
to fashion a new, deeply humane and promising model of addiction treatment, illustrated by poignant clinical vignettes."
-Gabor Maté, MD Author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
"Jan Winhall blends Gendlinian bottom-up process of felt sensing with Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory.
Her book is both broad and deep and a remarkable contribution to the Field of Addiction. Jan's wise and heartfelt human presence is fully embodied throughout the book as she takes us on her own journey over 40 years as a psychotherapist. Clinicians will be able to easily take in these fresh clinical avenues, perspectives and practical clinical treatment methods.
-Karen Whalen, PhD
"Based on Porges' biologically-based theory of trauma, this book shows how addiction is a brilliantly adaptive way to 'bear the unbearable' rather than a sickness.
Integrating this framework with her intuitive grasp of body-centered therapy, Winhall helps us both reinterpret and treat this most formidable of habits."
-Marc Lewis, PhD Author of The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease